This month’s Playboy cover features Marge Simpson:
In order to attract as many hits as possible, the Huffington Post featured a slide show asking “Who’s Hotter” and presenting no fewer than 25 Playboy covers to compare.
Ironically, the slide show did not contain the Playboy cover that inspired the Simpson drawing. Behold Darine Stern, the first black woman on the cover of Playboy (1971):
I wonder how she managed to get left out of the slide show. Hmmm. No other black women made it in either.
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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
Comments 17
Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist — November 3, 2009
Lame. But I hate the Huff-Po. I stopped reading the website when they started featuring crap like this.
Robin — November 3, 2009
In the Huffington's Post's defense, they present the slide show as featuring "celebrity models"- kind of a weak category in itself, but may account for the lack of Stern's own cover in the slide show.
Foobar — November 3, 2009
Yes, Robin is correct.
sarah — November 3, 2009
@Robin, that's hardly an acceptable reason though. No black women were in the slideshow, celebrity or not, which is unfair, imo.
Though is it playboy, i guess...
alissa — November 3, 2009
ironically, in my mind the simpsons were always a black family.
Medici — November 3, 2009
Marge seems to be wearing some kind of makeup that makes her skin closer to what we would call "white." I think it's very racist that she can't be beautiful in her natural yellow.
SELF DEVELOPMENT BLOG » Marge Simpson in Playboy; Darine Stern Left Out — November 4, 2009
[...] (View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages) [...]
eli osaurus — November 4, 2009
When i read this post, i went right to the huff post link and looked at all the covers, I noticed two things, all the models I read as Caucasians or heavily tanned Caucasians. The other being that Drew Barrymore my hero.
I proceeded to read the rest of the post, and saw the Darine Stern cover.
I believe, that as Darine Stern was the first black woman to appear on a playboy cover, that should be enough reason for her to fall under the loose category of “celebrity“. I tried to research how many non-Caucasian celebratory women (if that can even be a category) had appeared on a playboy cover, but found the task very daunting, because there were so many women. I was very disappointed that the collection put together by huff post was so damn homogeneous.
Now, if the collection of photos were meant to highlight, and draw attention to the Marge Simpson cover, it is completely relevant, and indeed, important to include the Darine Stern cover, and unforgivable that it wasn't. I read the parallel between the two covers as a sweet, unique tribute. Darine Stern was the first African American woman to appear on the cover, Marge Simpson is the first cartoon woman to appear on the cover. It is really neat that they modeled Marges pose after Darine. It is the most relevant cover to showcase, and the fact it was not included is so disappointing.
Ben Zvan — November 5, 2009
I'm a photographer and I recently dug through 30+ years of Playboy centerfolds to get a feel for their technique (which is dreck by the way) and was struck that it wasn't until the late 60s or early 70s that they had a black 'Playmate of the Month.' I think I saw a total of 4 Black women between 1953 and 2001. Also, there were only a couple Asian women, one of whom was (I think) Vietnamese but was dressed up in a mock Japanese Kimono. Overall I was nonplussed.
she — November 19, 2009
I own the Playboy shirt with the black model cover on it. I found it in Vegas, of course, in the men's section of their store last year. You should see the looks that I get when I wear it. Once a black guy walks up to me in the laundrymat and hands me his business card. He was a minister. He said he saw my shirt and figured I might need his card. Uh? Why? Because I might be a lesbian?
I bought the shirt because rarely do black women get recognized for their beauty especially in the 60s/70s. And honestly, being the first black woman on a playboy cover is an accomplishment no matter how you may feel about the context.
Anatomy Of A Playboy Cover - Forbes — August 21, 2012
[...] white custom-made Playboy chair. From a composition standpoint, there is a great contrast between Darine Stern’s gorgeous dark brown skin and the chair’s stark Playboy [...]
Women Sex Health » Anatomy Of A Playboy Cover — August 22, 2012
[...] white custom-made Playboy chair. From a combination standpoint, there is a good contrariety between Darine Stern’s beautiful dim brownish-red skin and a chair’s sheer Playboy [...]